15 MARIA DA CRUZ.mp3

16 SAUDADES DE TI.mp3

17 SABE-SE LÁ.mp3

18 CONFESSO.mp3

19 LÁ PORQUE TENS CINCO PEDRAS.mp3

20 DÁ-ME UM BEIJO.mp3

FADO ARCHIVES

After more than a decade of searching through public archives, private collections, second-hand shops and the most unlikely places, comes the series The Fado Archives Collection. First up are three of the biggest names in female interpretation of Lisbon Fado. Accessible to all, the voices of Ercília Costa, Maria Alice and Amália Rodrigues show us how fado sounded when they first came into contact with the phonographic industry and the recording experience.

AMÁLIA RODRIGUES – THE FADO´S DIVA

Preço:12,50 €

AMÁLIA RODRIGUES – THE FADO´S DIVA - MP3

Preço:7,50 €

The sound quality of the original recordings from the big labels of the time operating in Portugal and Brazil (Brunswick, Odeon and Continental), which issued these first fados, has now been refined. The 78 rpm records have undergone careful sound recovery in the laboratory. The original technical recording characteristics have been preserved so as to offer maximum faithfulness to the sound captured at the time.

The main objective of The First Recordings series, is to bring to the general public a significant and hitherto totally unknown part of the recordings made in Portugal since the very beginning, the turn of the century, or, according to research, 1900 to be precise. The criterion adopted for selecting the phonograms for the first three discs of the new series was the reproduction of the first recordings, in chronological order, according to the pressing codes, of each of the three great, and we believe most significant, female voices of Lisbon Fado: Ercília Costa, Maria Alice and Amália Rodrigues.

The re-issue of historic recordings is a significant initiative per se since it makes available what previously was not. When it happens in the area of popular music in general, and in this specific case fado, it is more interesting still. As there is not, traditionally, a written musical record in this cultural niche, the sound recording itself represents the database. Making sound available as a primary documentary source is therefore not only of general interest but it also produces didactic material of educational interest, which is fundamental for the development of scientific research in areas such as traditional music, oral literature, recording technology, phonographic restoration, etc. Knowledge of the expressive heritage of the Portuguese language, music and culture in general, and fado in particular, also benefits from this latest re-issue of historic recordings.

The new series, The First Recordings, now presents a disc dedicated to Amália Rodrigues, with the first fados and songs recorded by her in Brazil and Portugal. The first 16 tracks are the phonograms recorded in Rio de Janeiro for the label Continental in August and September 1945, with a variety of accompaniment, not always precisely indicated on the original records: with the Orquestra Portuguesa de Guitarras, conducted by Fernando Freitas, with a single viol on the flamenco songs Olhos Verdes and Los Piconeros, and with piano, though discreetly, along with Fernando Freitas on guitar and Gonçalves Dias on viol on the fados Ai Mouraria, Sardinheiras, Maria da Cruz and Saudades de Ti. The last four tracks are two pairs of fados recorded in two recording sessions at Continental in Lisbon in 1951 or possibly 1952, before Amália began to record with Valentim de Carvalho in March 1952. On the first two, Sabe-se lá and Confesso, recorded with orchestra conducted by maestro Frederico Valério, the instrumentalists accompanying on guitar and viol are not identified, leaving it open as to whether it might be, respectively, Jaime Santos and Santos Moreira. On the other two: Lá Porque Tens Cinco Pedras and Dá-me um Beijo, Amália is simply accompanied by Jaime Santos and Santos Moreira, on guitar and viol, respectively.

Amália was 25 at the time. The Estado Novo had established the national dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal. Ever since 1932, by the hand of António Ferro, first in a series of interviews made to the head of government and later as a director of the National Propaganda Secretariat, the policy of spirit, as the government’s cultural policy was then called, had operated to shape the “national soul”. The frustrated attempt to suppress fado had given way to its use as a propagandist tool. Amália, whose career as a fadista had begun in 1939 at the Retiro da Severa, had been admired by António Ferro since 1941, the year in which he had begun to run the National Radio Broadcasting Company. At the age of 23 and with what was an already successful career, Amália began her international action as an official representative of the nation during the Second World War. She was, at the time, at the height of her artistic activity, not only in the most prestigious fado houses of Lisbon but also on the revue stage. Recording was, however, not in her plans because she was convinced that records would have a negative effect on her popularity as a live performer. In fact it was in Brazil, on her second consecutive visit to Rio de Janeiro, in August and September 1945, that Amália recorded, with enormous success, her first eight records for the Brazilian label Continental, the 16 recordings presented here. The recording industry in Brazil was burgeoning in the post-war period. Amália’s records, imported into Portugal, won over the public and the recording labels alike. Finally, after a series of recordings for Continental, it was Valentim de Carvalho that, from 1952 on, began to issue Amália’s records.

The First Recordings of Amália present us with magnificent musical interpretation. Amália’s voice and interpretative style, full of energy and musical sensitivity, bring a completely new dimension to female interpretation of fado. The perfect symbiosis between voice and instruments that we can find, for example, on the fado Troca de Olhares, with music by Martinho d’Assunção and lyrics by João Linhares Barbosa, is a testament to the supreme musical quality of the interpretation. What is also remarkable, however, is the general thematic nature of the literary texts chosen by Amália in these first recordings. If on one hand unrequited love and a somewhat generalised fatalism is still present, the tone of misfortune in the female repertoire that we knew before is replaced by a touch of irreverence, sometimes expressed not in the text itself but in the musical interpretation. This change in the female condition as interpreted by Amália was arguably her greatest contribution to the evolution of the fado phenomenon. Let us stay with Amália, then, in the far-off year of 1945, just listening or reflecting, for documentary purposes, for study or simply for aesthetic enjoyment or historic curiosity, on the varied repertoire that she decided to offer us in her first ever recordings.